Anne Brontë Nightwalker

Chapter 16

Still, I gather a shawl about my shoulders and slip on a pair of tortoise shell glasses to conceal my eyes, glowing like blue amethysts. I feel like a young librarian on her way to rendezvous with a dashing hero from a Gothic romance.

Have I gone completely mad? A low voice whispers in the back of my mind. Dangerous. It is too dangerous. But I push my brother's voice away.

Silently, I ascend the stairs to find that William has built a large fire and set tea out before it. Ginger. It is one of the few items of consumption I have in the house. Does he find it odd my pantry is bare? Besides a tin of hot chocolate and a few canisters of loose fragrant teas, my cupboards hold only small cans of cat food stacked in tidy rows. And in the fridge there is nothing but a bottle of farm fresh organic cream—an occasional treat for Ivanhoe.

The scent of spicy ginger saturates the air. The sound of flaming pine crackling and popping fills the room. Ivanhoe jumps upon the piano to survey Woody from a safer vantage point. Woody has stretched out before the fire and William stands at the mantle with a serious expression, staring at one of my paintings. It is ocean bleeding into sky in shades of iron blue and smoked violet tinged in tender rose, the sun about to rise or set upon a vast expanse of loneliness. A girl stands before it, gazing out to sea, looking small as a snowflake amidst the empty grandeur.

Such a place of refuge for me, that sea. Now stolen by the sun.

William turns as I walk in and looks almost dazzled when he sees me before quickly composing himself. He's removed his coat to reveal faded jeans and a worn Oxford sweater with two daggers crossed over the heart lending him the air of a lean mountain poet. In his presence, I fall immediately shy.

"I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of making tea that I found in your cupboard. I thought it might help settle you. I feared Atticus had shaken you a bit. He honestly doesn't know how savage he can sometimes appear."

"Thank you for coming to my rescue," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. I have never drunk tea with a man beside my fireplace. This is new, but I will be gone soon so I'll allow myself to enjoy the moment. I'm certain it will never come again.

I pour steaming tea into a china cup and slide it to the edge of the table nearest him. Then I make myself a cup and savor the aroma and warmth wafting off it before I curl into the velvet chair before the fire.

When did I become such a sensualist?

A myriad of emotions sweeps across William's face. Worry. Curiosity. Desire? Finally, he clears his throat. "I must apologize for Atticus' behavior. I assure you he is a good man. He would lay down his life for you without a thought if you were ever in harm's way."

This I do not believe.

"He's been too long at war. A decade in combat. And I mean real combat. He actively sought out the most violent territories, and as a result has lost more friends than anyone should ever have to."

I stare into the fire. Against my will, my heart softens. Few people in the world today have lost more loves than me. Helplessly, I watched my mother, brother, and three sisters perish, and from immortality's wake, I witnessed my only remaining sister, on the cusp of love and motherhood, fall far too young. I saw my father crack with grief, his entire family dead before him. My heart has broken so hard and deep, it's a wonder it even beats at all.

Modernity shields people from such pain until war rips those layers of protection away.

"That doesn't explain why he hates me so."

"The war has left him suspicious. We saw such strange, inexplicable things."

"You were there too?"